Systems for tracking, managing and maintaining a fleet of portable assets generally includes one or more systems for monitoring the location of the portable asset and one or more systems for monitoring the performance of the portable asset. A system for monitoring the location of the portable asset may include a radio transmitter, a global positioning system (GPS) device, a terrestrial-based communication system such as a cellular network, or another type of communication device capable of periodically or continuously reporting its geographic location and other metrics relating to the portable asset to a receiving device. A system for monitoring the performance of the portable asset may include a number of sensors that collect and report vehicle performance data and a user interface for monitoring operator interaction with the portable asset. For example, in an aspect, the system for tracking, managing and maintaining the portable assets may include, but is not limited to, a remote unit referred to as a mobile computing platform product (MCP) located in a cab and/or trailer of a vehicle transporting a portable asset, which communicates with a network management center (NMC) that collects and analyzes information from one or more MCPs in a fleet. An example of an MCP includes, but is not limited to, an MCP 50, an MCP 100, an MCP 110, an MCP 200, and a TT210 sold by Omnitracs, LLC of Dallas, Tex.
Occasionally, the remote units or MCPs of the system for tracking, managing and maintaining the portable assets may require software updates from a back-end server in order to maintain an up-to-date system configuration. In some scenarios, the number of back-end servers may be limited, however, and the number of remote units or MCPs requiring software updates may be extensive (e.g., 200,000 MCPs). Therefore, updating each of the remote units or MCPs in the fleet using a limited set of back-end servers may result in high traffic load and/or significant delays.
Therefore, improvements in effectively managing the software updates of remote units or MCPs without causing system degradation are desired.